By Dave McCracken
“The concept we are trying to portray is the excitement of making a discovery of gold!”
Dear members and supporters,
We are working on an important program that we believe is likely to go a long way to promote the positive side of small-scale gold mining to the larger world audience. As contracts remain in the final stages, I cannot talk about the program just yet. But I will go public with the information as soon as I can. Please stay tuned in on our free monthly newsletter.
Meanwhile, timing requires that we begin developing a logo that we can use to help put a face on the program. As a first step in this, I thought it might be better to see if there are any artists within the industry that are willing to help.
The words we want to turn into the logo are: “Rock” Star
This is “Rock” as in the rock we mine or move out of the way to develop rich gold deposits.
While I am open to any creative idea you might come up with, my initial creative impulse trends in the direction of making the letters of the words look like they are made out of rock — or perhaps, better yet, forming all the letters together into a single rock structure.
Here is part of a story title we made to look like a rock when we were publishing a magazine. It doesn’t need to be like this. I’m just putting it here to help spark ideas:
Three dimensional seems better, like there is some depth to the letters, words or a connected structure
We will want to have some gold coming out of the rock in places. Since the second word is “Star,” it occurs to me that perhaps the first word should mostly look like rock (perhaps with some vain structure), and the second word should have more gold, perhaps with the most gold protruding out of the top of an extended T and shining like a star. If we extend the T in the second word, for graphic balance, we probably want to extend the R in the first word, though maybe not as high.
Therefore, the Logo needs to be in color. Perhaps some shade of gray for the rock and vain structure, and a bright golden color for the gold.
I have a concept that we could add a prospector to the logo, perhaps with a pick over his shoulder, reaching out to the brightest gold on the top of the T. The prospector could be standing partially behind the “Rock Star” structure, or maybe even standing on the first word, crouching down to reach out for the gold that is protruding out of the T.
Or perhaps it would be even better to have him standing on (or behind) the “Rock” and swinging his pick down onto the T, breaking off a piece to expose the gold (which shines bright like a star).
I will leave the creative impulse to you artists out there.
The concept we are trying to portray is the excitement of making a discovery of gold!
There should be no background beyond the structure of the logo (words and prospector).
Here are the contest prizes: First place will receive a half-ounce Gold Eagle. The two runner-ups will each receive one quarter-ounce Gold Eagle.
I personally will be the final judge on which logos, if any, work to symbolize this coming program. If we award the prize(s), we will basically be buying all rights to the art — which we will then trademark as our own.
Final submission date and contest winners will be decided and announced on March 1st, 2012. This allows us 10 weeks to make this happen. We will place the winning art (if any) on line for everyone to see as soon as we have submitted trademark applications.
To those of you who are inclined to participate, I strongly suggest that you send me rough concepts (attached to email) in advance. In this way, if the concept does not serve the purpose, I can let you know before you invest too much time into it. If the concept works, we can collaborate on its development.
All submissions should be sent directly to me with a return email address so we can communicate. My email address is as follows: dave@promackmining.com I would appreciate an email from you if you intend to participate, so I can get an idea how much collaboration we are going to have from the industry on this project.
Good luck on this. I have my hopes up that this important symbol will emerge from inside the industry.
Dave Mack
New 49’er Prospecting Association
